Daniel Hurt was all about DNA. He owned several clinical laboratories in Florida that conducted or arranged for a variety of medical tests based on DNA science. He lived extravagantly with his earnings from his DNA test enterprises. He even owned a luxury watercraft named “In My DNA.” And while most DNA tests are accurate, not all of them fully tell the truth. Just like Hurt. It turns out that Hurt was actually running three different schemes in three different states out of his DNA testing businesses that resulted in almost $100 million in stolen funds from Medicare and other government funded social services.
Starting in 2018, Hurt started one scheme that caused fraudulent bills to be submitted to Medicare by Ellwood City Medical Center, a Pennsylvania hospital for genetic screenings for cancer risk. Hurt obtained cheek swab samples from Medicare beneficiaries through mail marketing and purported “health fairs” that he organized around the country. Then he obtained, with kickbacks and bribes, orders for testing from doctors who were not actually treating the beneficiaries or were not qualified to interpret the tests.
In 2019, Hurt started a similar scheme with Medicare beneficiaries in New Jersey. Using his laboratories to “conduct” medical tests, he paid kickbacks and bribes to various medical personnel who supplied orders for cancer genome testing. Hurt-controlled laboratories submitted claims for payment to Medicare for these CGx tests, and Medicare reimbursed the laboratories without knowing that the services were not medically necessary or were procured through the payment of kickbacks. No harm, no foul according to Hurt since he claims that the results of the tests were never used in treating patients.
Finally, our fraudster ran his third scheme in Florida where he billed TRICARE and CHAMPVA, a federal insurance programs for military servicemembers and veterans, for medically unnecessary compound drugs. Patients recruited for that scheme were directed to obtain obtained fraudulent prescriptions from a telemedicine service in Utah where upon Hurt would fulfill the prescription from a pharmacy he owned.
Kudos to Assistant United States Attorney Sean Sherman who handled this massive investigation. Hurt pled guilt to all three schemes on September 15, 2022
Today’s Fraud of the Day is based on an article “Florida businessman admits to role in $100M health care fraud scheme” published by Tribune Review on September 15, 2022
TribLIVE’s Daily and Weekly email newsletters deliver the news you want and information you need, right to your inbox. A Florida businessman involved in nearly $100 million of health care fraud pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in Pittsburgh.
Daniel Hurt, 58, of Fort Lauderdale, pleaded guilty in three separate cases before U.S. District Judge W. Scott Hardy to charges of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States. He will be sentenced on Jan. 23.
